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Mogadishu residents feel relaxed

Mohamed Abdullahi no longer shoves his cellphone down his trousers when leaving the house. Abdulaziz Mohamed has dismissed the armed men that used to guard his stationery shop. Farh Dir enjoys a restaurant dinner with a childhood friend -- the first time he has been out at night in years.

"What has happened in Mogadishu is a miracle," said Abdi Haji Gobdon, the 62-year-old director of Voice of Peace radio in the Somali capital. "We are still trying to take it all in."

Three weeks ago, the last of Mogadishu's warlords were chased from the city by a combination of Islamist militia firepower and what people here describe as a "societal uprising."

After 16 years of chaos, the world's most lawless city suddenly has a taste of peace and security. Almost overnight, the atmosphere has changed from one of fear and despair to euphoria and even cautious optimism about the future.

"Everybody is happy," said Ahmed Mohamed, a spectacled 41-year- old businessman. "We are only a short time into this revolution, but we all hope this could be the start of a new life."

While the west frets over the motives of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which now controls Mogadishu, there have been few, if any, signs of a Taliban-like agenda -- even if the ICU did appoint a cleric wanted by the US to a top post on the weekend. There have been no lustrations -- purification ceremonies, no public floggings, and no move to ban the use of khat, the narcotic leaf that is daily bread to many Somalis.

For now, at least, the courts enjoy huge support -- 95 percent -- according to Gobdon, even if it is based less on their religious bent than on their success in defeating the warlords.

Few in this battered city had expected this to happen. Since the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, the warlords and their heavily armed militias had kept a tight grip on power, amassing huge wealth at the expense of the people. Extortion, kidnappings and theft were so rife that the streets emptied at sundown.

With no justice system to turn to, individual Somali clans started setting up their own courts, with the Koran as their guide.

The courts established some degree of order and their popularity grew. Rich businessmen such as Mohamud Omar Adani, a 42-year-old man with a healthy beard and a potbelly swelling his white jellaba, poured in money and weaponry to strengthen the courts' position. "We supported them because we thought they could bring peace," he said.

"The warlords were making life and business very complicated for everyone."

The warlords in February said they would take on the ICU.

"The warlords made it very clear that they had taken money from the US and that they were looking for al-Qaeda suspects on America's behalf," said Aini Abukar Ga'al, 46, a human rights officer for the Coalition for Grassroots Women's Organizations, in Mogadishu.
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